China COSCO Shipping Aiming for 2 Million TEU Capacity by 2018

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Monday February 22, 2016

China COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited (China COSCO Shipping), the entity resulting from the merger of China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (China COSCO) and China Shipping Group (CSG), was officially launched on Friday.

The new company is aiming to reach operational capacity of 2 million TEU by 2018, according to Chinese media.

According to Alphaliner data, right now 2 million TEU would be enough to put China COSCO Shipping into third place of the current ranking of the world's largest container carriers, behind Maersk and MSC.

CMA CGM is the only other carrier who currently has over 1 million TEU of capacity.

The newly formed China COSCO Shipping is now ranked in fourth in the world, and says it has a total of 1.58 million TEU in containership capacity.

China COSCO Shipping says it has a total fleet of 1,114 ships, with a total 85.32 million DWT of carrying capacity, including the world's largest dry bulk and tanker fleet capacity.

The company is also said to now rank second in the world for its combined total of 46 container terminals around the world, with a total throughput of 90 million TEU.

"We believe that by proceeding with the 6+1 industrial layout, China Cosco Shipping Corp will form a complete global business chain within a short time, laying a solid foundation for the globalisation of the group," stated the company.

It is reported that China COSCO Shipping has intentions of expanding beyond the normal container shipping services on Asia to Africa and China to Southeast lines, and will be turning attention toward major shipping lines, specifically the Asia to Europe and Asia to America routes.

Last week, Ship & Bunker reported that CMA CGM S.A. (CMA CGM) and China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (China COSCO) were working toward the creation of a new mega-alliance that could split up three of the four current major East-West shipping alliances and provide significant competition to the fourth.